Saturday, April 30, 2011

Jack 'splains exactly what happened that night he went out for some Chinese (or was it Vietnamese or Thai?). And if you believe that a smart guy like Jack needed police to so advise him because he couldn't discern the joint's character for himself, then I bet you also think he'd make a helluva prime minister.

GUELPH—Despite being mired in third place in the polls, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff says he’s proud of his effort to rebuild his party by doing politics differently.

Barnstorming through southern Ontario, Ignatieff said he’d been trying since taking over the Liberals in late 2008 to “reconnect my party to Canadian voters.”

“The thing I’ve tried to do since I’ve been in federal politics is to do this thing differently,” he told the media after touring a farmers market in Guelph.

He said after five years of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives in power, Canadians want more open, responsive politics. And he says this approach is one of the reasons he’s been getting overflow crowds at Liberal rallies and town hall meetings throughout the campaign.

“One of the reasons that we’ve had rallies that are full of people and one of the reasons there has been enthusiasm from beginning to end is a sense that we’ve rebonded the leadership of the party to its base.”...

I guess it's more face-saving to spout malarkey about "doing things differently" and "rebonding with your base" than it is to acknowledge the obvious and cue the band to start playing "Nearer My God To Thee."

If his body rub hanky panky does scotch it, that is, which I highly doubt, given the sordidness of the story and the Canucki lamestream media's reluctance to pounce on this sort of thing (when a lefty's involved, I mean: were, say, Maxime Bernier or another Tory involved, they'd be on it quicker than you can say, "How much extra for a happy ending"?).

As the ongoing demonstrations in Tahrir Square continue, the ugly specter of anti-semitism has risen with a vengeance among the protestors. Brandishing posters with pictures of President Mubarak with Stars of David branding his forehead, some protestors have invoked the anti-Semitic image of a conspiracy by Jews to control world leaders, including their own. One viciously anti-Semitic poster depicts Mubarak as a blood-sucking devil. Both Mubarak and Egypt’s new vice president, Omar Suleiman, were depicted in effigy, with Stars of David drawn on their ties prior to their symbolic hangings.

No Judenhass to see here, delusional Jews who want more than anything to believe in the "Arab Spring". Best move along now and get back to "building bridges" and eating tasty samosas, 'kay?

believes that we should decide how to vote on Monday by asking ourselves specific questions. Do we need a government that allows individual initiative or a government run by a "control freak"? Do we wish to live under a leader or a "dictator"? Do we favour a government that considers itself humanly imperfect or a government that always considers itself right, "like God"?

...She wants fiscal transparency and she wants plain speaking. She wants cheap AIDS drugs for the poor countries, a debate on abortion, protection from rape and enforced prostitution, support for Planned Parenthood -and don't forget respect for parliamentary democracy. (She somehow ignores world peace and a chicken in every pot.) These demands, as she imagines it, would be met by what she chooses to call the "Common Decency Party."

This is not an overly subtle way of saying that those who think as she does are on the side of decency and goodness. The rest of you people (that would be the Conservatives) aren't.

Fulford knows exactly where Atwood is coming from--i.e. from the Annex, an insular Toronto neighbourhood that is both a location and a state of mind:

The Annex fits snugly into the riding of Trinity-Spadina, represented since 2006 by Olivia Chow of the NDP, who won the seat from the Liberals. Conservatives exist in the Annex, but their public presence is discreet; it's hard to find their lawn signs and few profess to know the Conservative candidate's name. In Trinity-Spadina in 2008, Chow received three votes for every one that went to the Conservative.

The Annex is a particularly wordy place. Almost everyone who lives there works in some branch of the word industry. On many streets there are more professors than houses, and it is not uncommon to find one dwelling in which two journalists can be found raising children with embryonic tendencies toward journalism.

Atwood is an independent thinker, highly original in fact, who just happens, by coincidence, to think of politics precisely the way the rest of the Annex thinks. And the Annex, in return, thinks what she thinks. The Annex is a lesson to us all, one place in Canada that proves people can set aside their differences and come together in the common pursuit of decency. Borrowing the phrase of an American author, you could accurately call Annex dwellers the herd of independent minds.

[W]hy was this guy [Mortenson] a household name and international hero when so many of his truly deserving fellow speakers at that conference were not? And what about other, anonymous educators in Afghanistan? There are, I gather, real heroes of education in that country. They’re nameless and faceless; they work quietly, with dedication, and at low pay as part of large enterprises that they don’t run. Their work doesn’t allow them the time to jet from one U.S. city to another promoting themselves. Most real-life heroes are like that. Real-life heroes don’t write books about their heroism. Is that so hard a fact to grasp? (When the Church is thinking about canonizing a guy, it doesn’t call him in to testify to his own sanctity.)

In recent days many commentators have lamented that it is dismaying to know that Mortenson’s a phony. No, what’s dismaying is that so many people were taken in in the first place. What’s dismaying is that so many people don’t seem to recognize a huckster, a con artist, a flimflam man when they see one — and, by the same token, don’t seem to recognize authentic virtue, selflessness, and humility either. Have we become so coarsened by celebrity culture, so accustomed to slick showbiz packaging and self-promotion, so habituated to feeding the ravenous narcissism of the famous, that we’re no longer capable of detecting what Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof called“a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity”? Hemingway said that the one thing a writer needed most of all was a foolproof “bullshit detector”; are twenty-first-century Americans’ bullshit detectors hopelessly out of whack? Have the glossy, streamlined, highly polished and tidily ordered versions of human reality served up on all too many “reality” programs and Oprah-type talk shows destroyed our very ability to separate the genuine from the bogus, the real article from the counterfeit, and even caused us to turn our noses at the imperfect, unprocessed, clunky, smudged, and pockmarked real thing? Do we want to be fooled?

Some might suggest that the elevation to the presidency of Barack Obama, an empty sales pitch in a snappy suit, answered these questions definitively...

And that "some" would be correct. Obama's another scam artist with a slick line who thinks the world of himself. But as my wise old Bubby used to say, "it takes two to tangle," and you can only be conned if you allow yourself to be.

Hey, Jack, now that we know how you like to "relax," how about adding happy endings at cat houses as a plank in the NDP platform? Spread the "happiness" around, so to speak, in a social justice-y sort of way.

It's only "fair," after all.

Update: Two poems for the "handy" man:

There once was a candidate, Jack,Who suffered an awful attack.He lay down on a tableAnd showed he was ableAnd never, ever went back.

* * * * * * * Higgedly piggeldySocialist Layton was Caught in flagrante in a Bad part of town.

Will people ignore it?Vote for him anyway?If they do it's clear he'llHave won, hands down.

Update: The joint Layton went to for his, er, "physical therapy" sounds like a real class establishment. From the Toronto Sun:

TORONTO - The suspected bawdy house at 787 Dundas St. W. where Jack Layton was found was one of 26 raided by Toronto Police in Project Cobra in the mid-1990s.

Asian crime gangs were feeding off the bawdy houses that stretched across Toronto from Chinatown East to Parkdale.

"Police were cracking down on underage girls from Thailand," a former asian crime unit cop says.

"It was unregulated and unpoliced ... it was a lucrative business, the girls were pulling in $600 to $700 for a couple hours work," he says.

The setup at 787 Dundas St. W. impressed the ex-cop.

The guy who ran the place controlled traffic with a red and green light system from the second floor where he could see down a stairway to the street.

"The setup was amazing ... when the police showed up, the manager flicked on the red light switch -- which told the girls to pretend it was a legitimate business -- rubs only -- keep it clean and the green light meant they could perform sexual services," he says.

"Each room had a window so that the owners could check that the girls weren't being hurt or more importantly, to them, that the girls weren't performing oral sex and later saying they were only being masturbated because fellatio cost more and the owners wanted to make sure they got their money."

Police were most concerned about underage girls brought in from Thailand and Vietnam.

The other women in the bawdy houses ranged in age from the 20s to 50.

From the 20s to 50, eh? Nice to see that the place didn't discriminate on the basis of age. "Human rights" uber alles and all that.

Friday, April 29, 2011

How gullible can you be? That's the question I asked myself as I read, incredulous, this account of a Jewish-Muslim seder in the Washington area hosted by an ISNA mosque:

Andrea Barron is performing an annual ritual: lighting two candles for a Passover Seder, the ceremonial retelling of the ancient Israelites' exodus from slavery in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago. The traditional elements are all in place - including the Seder plate which holds unleavened bread, green vegetables, bitter herbs and a shank bone.

However, what is unusual about the evening’s Seder is that it is taking place in the basement of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS), a mosque outside of Washington, D.C.

Rizwan Jaka, board member and chair of the interfaith committee at ADAMS, sees it as a natural fit.

“There’s commonality. We all believe in the freedom that’s the message of the exodus, that God saved Prophet Moses and his people from the pharaoh," says Jaka. "The striving for freedom is something that is important for everyone."

It’s the third time the Sterling, Virginia mosque has hosted the event and an air of friendly, mutual respect is evident. Barron arranges the seating so that Muslims and Jews alternate, which results in them sitting next to each other. Before the ceremony, Jaka welcomes participants with the Jewish greeting, “Shalom.”

“This is a large mosque. It is one of the largest mosques in the country. Mohamed Majid, the imam, is the president of ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America,” says Barron, who leads the Seder. “So these are not sort of marginal Muslims. These are mainstream Muslims who are holding a Passover Seder in a mosque.”...

Why, it's as "mainstream," as the Muslim Brotherhood, of which it's an offshoot.

What's to be done about Jews who are pathologically clueless?Perhaps that should be the fifth question at the seder.

So Molotov and Ribbentrop are alive and well and living in Gaza and Ramallah. The pact between Fatah and Hamas is of course a marriage of convenience, forged solely to help fool the world into accepting a de facto state of Palestine. If such a pact were to last, then of course it would mean the end of Mahmoud Abbas and the economic and social progress that has been made in Ramallah and environs; these would be replaced by the Iranian satrapy of Hamastan, political dissidents thrown off the tops of tall buildings and women subjected to sexual terrorism and Islamic subjugation.

The fact is that Ramallah wants Gaza to be part of ‘Palestine’ like it wants a hole in the head. The point of the exercise for Abbas is merely to finesse the sticky question of whether ‘Palestine’ will include Gaza, and thus enable Whitehall, Foggy Bottom and Brussels to pretend that Hamas has now decided to stop being genocidal fanatics and become instead liberal democrats keen to show off how many friends they have on Facebook (just like all those nice al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood rebels in Libya and Egypt). But instead Hamas would swallow the PA, and Ramallah would kiss goodbye to the good life it has been belatedly discovering is distinctly preferable to never-ending war and economic and social enslavement..

Looking to buy the "happy" couple a wedding gift? I hear they're registered at Costco, Crate and Barrel and the UNRWA gift shop.

It's good to see that, fifty years after the Eichmann trial, Hannah Arendt's misperceptions, especially her thoughts on "the banality of evil" (the most famous line to come out of the trail, and part of the title of her famous book about the trail) have been largely debunked. It's amazing, though, how Arendt's analysis still manages to find its way into things. Last night, for instance, in a documentary on PBS about the Eichmann trial, the narrator explained that the reason Eichmann suffered during Argentina's economic collapse in the 1950s is that, like all Nazis, he "lacked imagination," and therefore couldn't adjust to changing circumstances.

Au contraire, thought I. That idea--that Nazis lacked imagination, that they were colourless bureaucrats, merely following directives--is pure Arendt. In reality, Eichmann in his prime was full of imagination. It was he, in fact, who imagined the round up and murder of Hungary's Jews in the latter stages of the war, when the Germans already knew they were going to lose. He didn't sit at his desk (a "desk genocidaire," according to Arendt) waiting for his orders to turn up. He took a pro-active approach to killing Jews, whom he despised (nothing "banal" about his anti-Semitism). (Deborah Lipstadt's recent book offers a cogent and succinct summary of the Eichamann trial. She has little good to say about Arendt, who missed most of the trial and whose impressions were based primarily on Eichmann's nebbishy appearance in the dock and on the dry court transcripts.)

The problem is that "the banality" trope (a trope that became a meme) is like the Rasputin of political theory: every time you think you've killed it, it comes back to life. Eventually, though, like Rasputin, it will finally die.

As her cameraman was changing a battery, Egyptian members of her film crew heard people in the crowd talking about wanting to take Ms Logan's pants off.

"Our local people with us said, 'We've gotta get out of here'," Logan told the newspaper. "That was literally the moment the mob set on me."

For an extended period of time, they raped me with their hands."...

She said the assault had opened her eyes.

Before the incident, Logan said she had not been aware of the degree of harassment experienced by women in Egypt and elsewhere.

"I would have paid more attention to it if I had had any sense of it," she said...

Indeed. But she wasn't paying attention to it--because no one in the MSM is (it's too "Islamophobic," too politically incorrect). To make sense of it, Logan needed to go elsewhere for the truth--to Phyllis Chesler's site, for example. And had she seen this series of photos, much about the experience of women in Egypt would have been revealed.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

In nutty "human rights" dystopias such as Canada and the U.K. there will be absolutely no heckling of Lesbians by white male comics and no singing of "Kung Fu Fighting" by an Isle of White male singers. (Humorously, the song was written and sung by a black chap, who insists it is not "racist".) However, there are some people who have the right to "stereotype" and "offend." They're the same people who have been given extra privileges by virtue of their membership in designated victim groups. This review of a new play in lefty NOW Magazine pretty much demonstrates how it works:

A student at the time – and the only non-white in his acting class – Abalos finally saw a character who wasn’t a token but a fully developed, flawed human being.

Fast-forward to 2008, when Abalos appeared in the remount of Banana Boys, which has a scene dubbed “the battlefield of love.”

“It looks at the hierarchy of who can date whom, and how far down on the list Asian men are,” Abalos smiles. “I thought it contained enough material for a whole play.”

The result is Brown Balls, a look at stereotypes of Asian men in Western popular culture.

Its three characters – regular guys JP, Paul and Charles – even portray such archetypal figures as Fu Manchu, Bruce Lee and Charlie Chan to make a point.

“There’s a fascinating paradox for me in the image of the Asian male as a violent martial artist, yet he’s emasculated and submissive; Asian wo-men, on the other hand, are hyper-sexualized.

“In Brown Balls, I put the Asian male onstage, both literally and figuratively.”

Using lecture techniques, erotic art and a lot of comedy, the playwright and actor – whose previous work includes SummerWorks hit Remember Lolo – relies on his own experiences and that of his friends, though he believes that other minorities will identify with the material.

“I remember reading that the problem isn’t that stereotypes are untrue, but that they’re incomplete. I want this show to add more pieces to the puzzle, about both sexuality and masculinity.”...

Because the Filipino-Canadian artist uses satire and comedy to make his points, he knows some people will be offended.

“But I believe art can allow people to see the world differently. I want the audience to look beyond the surface and realize that they share common experiences with these guys.

“We’re bound by the human condition, and that’s what creates community from isolation.”

Some people are bound by the human condition. Others, though, are bound by "human rights" idiocy, which isolates the politically incorrect and is a menace to the broader community.

In our "human rights"-mad Dominion, there's a "human rights" commission and/or tribunal in every province/territory in the land, plus a federal commish and court. Just for fun, and because I've never done it before, I took a gander at the Yukon HRC site. To my shock and dismay, I discovered that

promote the principle that every individual is free and equal in dignity and rights

promote the principle that cultural diversity is a fundamental human value and a basic human right

"Cultural diversity" as a "fundamental human value/ basic human right": you've got to be frikkin' kidding me. It's about as "fundamental" and "basic" a "human right" as "multiculturalism" is--which is to say, not the least bit fundamental or basic; in fact, merely an invention of power-crazed lefties who want to use it to mould society and hold sway over our actions and thoughts.

Termination of Aboriginal relations trainer by Ontario government ruled discriminatory

THUNDER BAY, ON, April 27 /CNW/ - Bonnie Couchie was terminated after the first of six sessions she was contracted to deliver on Aboriginal relations for staff from various Ontario government ministries. Evaluations from that first session included comments such as needing training "without all the whining about all the past historical injustices" as well as praise for Ms. Couchie being "good and interesting." Her non-Aboriginal co-presenter also received mixed reviews, eliciting comments such as "was this the first time [he] saw the material?"

One week later Ms. Couchie's contract was terminated at the direction of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. Her co-presenter, however, was retained - with the direction that he get some "refresher work." Ms. Couchie has a Master's Degree focused on Native Studies, decades of experience as an independent workshop facilitator and presenter, and has taught Native Studies at 6 different post-secondary institutions.

Witnesses at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario hearing testified about that first day of training, one confirming that workshop participants "expressed hostility during the training."Vice Chair Jennifer Scott of the Human Rights Tribunal concluded that Ms. Couchie was subject to "heightened scrutiny, disproportionate blame and over-reaction when compared to her co-presenter." Vice-Chair Scott also found that the Ministry "was prepared to remediate the poor performance of the non-Aboriginal person, but was not prepared to remediate the performance of the Aboriginal person."The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario ordered the Ministry to pay Ms. Couchie$20,000 in general damages.2011 HRTO 689

"As a First Nations person, every aspect of the discriminatory treatment shook me to my very core," said Couchie. "The discriminatory termination also had the effect of thwarting improved relations with the Aboriginal peoples, the very thing they sought by organizing the training," continued Couchie.

Yeah, us "hegemons" and our "unconscious beliefs": they--and we--suck. The most amusing part of this "discrimination" story (apart from the stuff about "all the whining," that is): the complaint was lodged against a ministry of the Ontario government, which is supposed to have internalized all the OHRC "human rights" crap. Not so funny: we, the taxpayers, are double losers. We're on the hook for picking up the tab for Ms. Couchie's legal expenses as she wended her way through the "human rights" process and for her big fat payoff.

Mahmoud Abbas is p.o.'d because he thinks Obama pulled a fast one on him--in a tree:

But the move [Hamas and Fatah making kissy-face] could still backfire for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. In recent days, he has become concerned that, despite earlier reports to the contrary, the Obama administration may try to dissuade other western countries from supporting a United Nations resolution in September in favour of an independent state. In an interview last week with Newsweek, Mr Abbas accused the American president of misleading him. "It was Obama who suggested a full settlement freeze," he told the magazine. "I said OK, I accept. We both went up the tree. After that, he came down with a ladder and he removed the ladder and said to me, jump. Three times he did it."

Layton's a Socialist."Share the wealth," he does insist.Tax you up the yin yang.Thinks rich folks all should hang.Ah, but hope 'n' change in the air--Will it lead to our despair?He's a Robin Hood, that's no good:Taliban Jack...

A few more choice words to describe Obama's Middle East policy, one which for the life of it could not envision an alliance between "good" Fatah and bad Hamas. Here's Ron Radosh on the subject:

According to reporter Isabel Kershner’s story in the Times, the announcement “ [of a Hamas-Fatah rapprochement] appeared to catch the Obama administration…by surprise.” If that is the case, it not only reflects on the poor intelligence capacity of the United States in the region, but also reveals the administration’s dependence on its myopic hopes about a new peace process taking place.

Yea, verily, it's the "peace process" that has incubated the alliance and that with shortly give birth to its awful progeny, the eliminationist state of Palestine.

When you're high and mightyAnd you want to kill the JewsAnd nuthin', nuthin'll halt your plans.Don't you fret, habibi, 'cuz together we can't loseAnd soon we will wipe Zionists off our land.

You just call out our name,And you know whenever you doWe'll come runnin' to triumph again.Winter, spring, summer or fall,All you gotta do is callAnd we'll be there, yeah, yeah, yeah,You've got a friend...

The royal couple's alma mater has some 'splainin' to do. The Guardian reports it has been taking bucks from barabaric Baathists:

A prestigious British university is to review the work of one of its academic research centres because its funding was arranged by the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, the Guardian can reveal.

The University of St Andrews, where Prince William and Kate Middleton studied, has received more than £100,000 in funding for its centre for Syrian studies with the assistance of Syria's ambassador to the UK, Sami Khiyami.

Following questions from the Guardian about its relations with figures associated with the regime – and "in view of significant international concerns about recent events in Syria" – a spokesman for St Andrews said the university would be reviewing the centre's work "to ensure its high academic standards are maintained".

The university's association with the Assad regime has come under scrutiny in the wake of the violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Syria which is estimated to have claimed 450 lives so far...

Does that mean it will be shuttering its Syrian centre and returning Assad's shekels?

For reasons of PC and what might be called a pathological reluctance to be labeled "racist" (the worstest thing anyone can be called) the Brits offered haven to a whole slew of radical types--with predictable results:

Kim Howells blamed “political correctness” for fostering a situation in which dozens of extremists being sent to fight the West after being indoctrinated in Britain.

The Daily Telegraph has disclosed this week how terrorist recruits from across Africa and the Middle East flocked to London to claim asylum.

Mr Howells, a former foreign office minister and chairman of the influential Commons intelligence and security committee, blamed “political correctness” which meant that the extremists and their views were not challenged.

He said: “There is a great reluctance to talk about the whole issue.

These were Muslim communities who were in Bradford, Luton as well as in London.

“I think that people were terrified of stirring up allegations of racism, of wanting to vilify a particular part of the community.

“There was a great reluctance to speak about them as a separate part of the community or a community that was undermining our way of life and threatening it.

“It was political correctness and it lasted really until the bombings of July in 2005 when everyone realised that these people simply didn't subscribe to political correctness.”

Britain ignored repeated warnings to stop granting asylum to Islamic extremists wanted in other countries for terrorism offences before the 7/7 bombings...

Abd al-Rahim Hussein Muhammad Abdah al-Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian, was said to have reported directly to Osama bin Laden. His interrogators reported: “Detainee is so dedicated to jihad that he reportedly received injections to promote impotence and recommended the injections to others.”

He received the injections “so more time could be spent on jihad – rather than being distracted by women”.

According to the notes, al-Nashiri was allegedly “the senior operative” in the attack on USS Cole, an American destroyer, in October 2000. Seventeen US sailors were killed in the suicide attack in a Yemeni port, while dozens were injured...

Presumably, the injections have no effect on one's posthumous potency with one's virginal harem.

And those who imagine that they somehow enhance the value of that citizenship by belittling the American-ness of their President--they not only disgrace the politics they uphold, but they do damage that will not soon be forgotten by the voters a revived Republicanism must win.

I'm no "birther," but isn't Obama the one who has belittled his "American-ness" by sucking up to Muslim despots and crapping all over American exceptionalism? And isn't his own reticence in releasing all manner of documentation (including his school records) more than a little to blame for giving rise to the "birther" issue? (It was said of British chat show host David Frost that "he rose without a trace." Much the same could be said of Obama.) And, sorry, his dad was born in Kenya, his stepdad was born in Indonesia, where, as "Barry Soetoro," Obama spent a portion of his childhood. Both men were Muslim and he bears two Muslim names. If people have questions re this man's identity, really, who can blame them?

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Great news--rival Palestianian factions have decided to let bygones be bygones (a prerequisite for a unilateral declaration of statehood, which is probably coming sooner than we think):

Gaza City (CNN)-- The politically divided Palestinian territories took a major step toward reconciliation Wednesday when the rival movements of Hamas and Fatah announced a deal to form a unity government, officials from both groups said.

The move comes amid international efforts for statehood advanced by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah. It could portend unity in the fractious Palestinian territories.

The two political factions have been close to civil war, culminating in 2007 when Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip after deadly fighting with Fatah partisans. Fatah retained control of the other Palestinian territory, the West Bank.

On Wednesday, U.S. officials continued to express concerns about Hamas.

"We have seen the press reports and are seeking more information," said Tommy Vietor, National Security Council spokesman.

"As we have said before, the United States supports Palestinian reconciliation on terms which promote the cause of peace," Vietor said. "Hamas, however, is a terrorist organization which targets civilians. To play a constructive role in achieving peace, any Palestinian government must accept the quartet principles and renounce violence, abide by past agreements and recognize Israel's right to exist."

Oh, Tommy, that quartet stuff is soooo 2008. No need to renounce violence or recognize Israel's right to exist when you can take a detour past the roadmap right into statehood.

In a JWR piece about a Koran-burning pastor, Cal Thomas 'splains how that free speech stuff is supposed to work:

Speech with which one agrees is easy to defend. Most would defend political speech with which they disagree, although a minority would censor it. The strength and uniqueness of the First Amendment is that it defends even hate speech. The response to speech we don't like is not less speech, but more. In Skokie, some Holocaust survivors created a museum to commemorate those who were murdered by the Nazis. That's the correct reaction. Overcome darkness with light. Overcome speech you don't like with speech you do like.

I find the burning of books--any books--abhorrent. That said, Canadian-style censorship (censorship for the sake of feigned "niceness"; censorship pushed by Official Jews who fear that without it, the Nazis will come back) is even worse. And killing people because a certain book has been burnt--that, of course, it worst of all.

Layton didn't talk about laughing or the NDP jobs plan. He had much more respect than that. He said that Muslim religious holiday was "an opportunity to renew the spirit and faith in Islam. We are not celebrating the end of Ramadan, but thanking Allah for the help and strength given throughout this special month and asking for that blessing to be extended throughout the year to all of humanity." Note the use of the first person - Layton uses the word "we". He personally wants to extend Allah's blessings to all humanity. He wants to renew Islamic faith.

Allah is the only one that must be worshipped on Earth, and the only way to guarantee this is to control all the land masses, air and sea and give Islam the proper channel to be heard by all the people.

WASHINGTON //Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, yesterday met with Barack Obama, the US president, at the White House to discuss bilateral relations and regional issues.

The leaders underscored the strong and broad-based relationship uniting the two countries and pledged to continue close co-operation, especially in the realm of security and commercial activity, according to WAM, the state news agency. They discussed recent developments in the Middle East, including bilateral and multilateral efforts to improve stability in the region, as well as the prevention and spread of extremism. Sheikh Mohammed also reiterated the UAE's support for international peacekeeping efforts in Libya.

The Crown Prince also met with Robert Gates, the US secretary of defence, as well as with Janet Napolitano, the US secretary of homeland security. In those meetings, he reaffirmed the UAE's strong commitment to a stable and peaceful Middle East while lauding the strategic and military co-operation between the two countries.

He also underscored the importance of the Obama administration's commitment to working with both sides to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As well as being committed to "solving" the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Sheikh is something of a philanthropist:

On Monday, the Crown Prince visited the Children's National Medical Centre in Washington. In 2009, Abu Dhabi donated US$150million (Dh551m) to the CNMC, which opened the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Paediatric Surgical Innovation in September of that year in honour of the late Sheikh Zayed, the founder of the UAE.

Sheikh Mohammed met some of the Emirati families whose children are being treated at the hospital and toured the new, state-of-the-art facility. He was accompanied by Sheikh Abdullah.

Slowly but surely, foreign Arabs are buying a major stake in American institutions (universities, hospitals, FOX News), a development that is good neither for Americans nor for the Jews nor for Western civilization in general.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Donald Trump may be many things--a blowhard, a big mouth, etc.--but a racist? That, at least, is how Fareed Zakaria sees it. Zakaria, he of the Thomas L. Friedman school of punditry (highly acclaimed; not particularly astute) opines that Trump's "birther" fixation is really "coded racism":

Put it this way: If the President was a white man named John Smith with the other background issues being the same - foreign student father, mother in Hawaii, etc. - would there be any of these dark insinuations?

Actually, since there's absolutely no indication that Trump's a racist, I'm pretty sure the insinuations would be identical.

Jewish? Considering whether or not to vote for the purportedly "surging" Jack Layton? Please don't. Vote for him, I mean. If you and enough other Canadians do, you can be certain that Canada will be going to Durban III and all the other UN anti-Zionism hoe-downs, and Canada will take its place once again as a member in good standing of the UN Zion-loathers' club.

Today marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the Nazi death camps. This solemn anniversary was declared International Holocaust Remembrance Day by the United Nations just a few years ago, and gives us an opportunity honour the memory of Holocaust victims.

We can never forget the hatred that destroyed an entire generation, as those that survived were forced to live with the memory of the evil they had encountered.

Today is a day of remembrance, but we cannot forget that intolerance still exists around the world today and there is much work to be done.

That's a pretty neat trick, Jacko--remembering the Holocaust without ever once mentioning the Jews. ("An entire generation" destroyed, eh? What a hollow and generic way to put it.) No doubt your many Muslim fans (the Muslim minority having overtaken the Jewish one in numbers and growing e'er larger by the day) would approve.

Update: A vote for Layton is also a vote for our wretched, quasi-totalitarian "human rights" system. Recall that when Maclean's and Mark Steyn were forced to face kangaroo "justice" in a B.C. show trial, Happy Jack sided with Elmo's racket:

Only a handful of left-wing radicals — including Jack Layton, whose letter of support was read out by [Canadian Islamic Congress lawyer] Mr. Joseph at yesterday's press conference — are defending the CIC-Maclean's fight as a natural, acceptable event in a mature democratic civilization.

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Scaramouche is my nom de Web. My real name is Mindy G. Alter, and I like to think of myself as a free speecher with a sense of humour. My bailiwick: fighting on behalf of all the good things that free speech helps safeguard, and doing my utmost to highlight the malevolence and imbicilities of those who oppose freedom, whomever they may be.